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CBC to Obama: Don't forget us

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Judge Judith W. Rogers (right), from the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, administered the ceremonial oath of office to members of the Congressional Black Caucus in January.
AP Photo

When the first African-American president holds his first meeting with 42 veteran black lawmakers Thursday, it will be a mountaintop moment for all involved.

But members of the Congressional Black Caucus will also be sending the president a subtle message.

“Don’t take us for granted,” said one House Democratic aide.

The meeting between President Barack Obama and the CBC, scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, has been in the works for several weeks, but the timing is, in part, “the result of member concerns about certain things,” said an aide to a senior member of the caucus.

Caucus members are pleased, by and large, with the size and composition of the $787 billion stimulus package passed earlier this month.

But in the lead-up to the final stimulus vote, many grumbled that party leaders, including the president, buckled by allowing the GOP to strip out nearly $60 billion in aid to states to make way for an alternative minimum tax extension that will largely benefit the middle class.

Moreover, many members, including CBC Chairwoman Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), are still bothered by Obama’s selection of New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg as commerce secretary — an appointment that ended with Gregg’s voluntary withdrawal over ideological differences with the White House.

Lee and other members successfully pushed the White House to remove the Census Bureau from the commerce secretary’s direct control after raising concerns about Gregg’s longtime opposition to the use of sampling — as opposed to door-to-door counting — as a means of determining the population in hard-to-count urban areas.

At the time, Lee called for “thorough scrutiny” of Gregg, saying his “record of previously voting to abolish the Commerce Department and his attempts to block President Bill Clinton’s efforts to secure adequate funding for the 2000 census raise troubling concerns.”

Some members, including Lee and outspoken Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), have privately expressed concerns that Obama hasn’t hired enough blacks for his administration, especially in the increasingly powerful Treasury Department.

“CBC actually got what they wanted in the recovery package; I don’t think they were upset in the end,” said another top aide to a senior caucus member. “I think they were more upset by the Judd Gregg nomination and the all-white Treasury Department.”

Another aide said that members are putting together a list of a half-dozen areas of policy concerns on which to quiz Obama, including the targeting of anti-foreclosure programs in low-income neighborhoods, reforming the rules regulating credit cards and the 14,000-troop increase in Afghanistan, which Lee and Waters view as a potentially dangerous escalation.

“We don’t want to substitute Afghanistan for Iraq,” Waters said on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” Friday night. “We don’t want to continue to send our young people off to war without really understanding what we’re doing.”

Waters acknowledged the difficult balance Obama faces by following through with a pledge to remove troops from Iraq while expanding the troop presence in Afghanistan.

“He wants to show that we’re strong; we’re not weak,” Waters said. “He’s trying to do this balancing act.”

15) The stimulus bill is the single largest spending bill in the history of humankind and yet, Obama is running around telling everyone how he's going to cut the deficit in a few years. Obama claiming to be a deficit hawk -- that's like getting a lecture on honesty from Bill Clinton.

14) ACORN, which engaged in large scale voter fraud during the 2008 election that won't be seriously investigated because Obama is in the White House, is now unapologetically breaking into houses across the country and encouraging squatters. Apparently, if you're a liberal group, you are above the law as long as the Obama administration is in the White House.

13) Despite the fact that America just conclusively proved it's not a racist nation by electing the first black President, race hustling bottom feeders like Al Sharpton and Julian Bond are making ridiculous charges of racism over an obviously non-racial cartoon. I thought the implicit promise of the Left was that electing Obama would put the race hustlers out of business?

12) Despite all the doomsday talk that we're hearing about how only European style socialism can save us from another depression, this recession isn't even close to being as bad as the one we endured in the early eighties. The utter lack of perspective about this topic is disturbing.

11) Barack Obama has already broken more campaign promises in a month than George Bush did in eight years. He's a living, breathing example of everything people hate about politics. He's habitually dishonest, will say anything if it benefits him politically, and he has already doled out more taxpayer money to his supporters via the stimulus bill than any politician in history.

10) Many of the same moderate Republicans who helped destroy the party over the last 4 years by pushing big spending, big government, pro-illegal immigration policies, and worst of all, John McCain, are once again declaring that the solution to our problems is to pursue many of the same policies that allowed the Democrats to take almost total control of D.C. "Thanks, but no thanks" for the "helpful" advice.

9) It's grotesque to see the worshipful treatment Obama is getting. It seems like his face is on the cover of half the magazines in the country, the press treats him with kid gloves, and they're naming schools after him. Meanwhile, he's just another sleazy politician who has yet to show an aptitude for much of anything other than reading off of a teleprompter.

8) In what is sure to be the first of many betrayals, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins sold the Republican Party and the American people down the river on the stimulus package. The amazing thing was not that they caved, since it has come to be expected from those three, but that they prostituted themselves to the Democrats so cheaply. Had they simply held out for another week or two, they could have given the GOP much more leverage, shaved at least another hundred billion off the stimulus package, and could have acquired tens of millions more in goodies for their constituents.

7) The Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, is a tax cheat. Let me repeat that: Timothy Geithner, the guy who is the head honcho of the IRS, is a tax cheat. One more time, Tim Geithner, the guy who will be in charge when the Obama administration institutes what will probably be the single largest tax increase in American history, later in Obama's first term, is a tax cheat.

6) Despite the fact that the Big 3 automakers have been so thoroughly destroyed by the unions that work for them that they have to come begging for billions per month just to survive, the Democratic Party is getting ready to try to ram a card check bill through the Senate that would expand the presence of unions all across the country. That's like finding a turd in the punch bowl and just tossing it into the lemonade.

5) The single most successful program of the Clinton years, welfare reform, has already been essentially repealed with no debate via the stimulus package. It's part of Obama's attempt to radically transform the country before the American people fully realize what's happening. So far, judging by the lack of discussion over welfare reform, it seems to be working.

4) The very same government that destroyed the banking industry by forcing it to make loans to people who couldn't pay them back is now using the very crisis it created to try to nationalize the banking industry. This is like making an arsonist the new fire chief after he burned down the fire station and 3-4 city blocks surrounding it.

3) Barack Obama is like Jimmy Carter on speed. In anticipation of the American people vomiting at the mere mention of his name in the future, he's trying to cram every single thing on the liberal wish list through so fast that our legislators don't even have time to read the bills that they're voting on.

2) We're literally going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars rewarding people for failing to pay their mortgages. Granted, they're not going to admit to that, but when people who pay their mortgages on time get nothing while people who aren't paying their mortgages get a break, courtesy of their fellow citizens' tax dollars, what else can it be called other than a reward for irresponsibility?

1) Prior to the stimulus bill being passed, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the recession we're in would be over by the 2nd half of 2009. In other words, we're going to spend 1.2 trillion dollars on a stimulus bill and best case scenario, it could pull us out of a recession 3-6 months early. Of course, it seems more likely that all the government interference and massive increases in debt could extend, rather than shorten the length of the recession. If we're not out of it by 2010, we know who deserves the blame.

Since our current Attorney General has called us a "nation of cowards," let me spark the debate by asking a question that I think is on the minds of many Americans:

Why do we have a black caucus in the Congress?

Why should we have a division in the Congress that votes and creates legislation along clear racial lines? A Congressional white caucus would be unthinkable to everyone.

I tend to think that groups that define their purpose along racial lines have a tendency to create a greater racial divide. Martin Luther King advocated that our society should strive to not be divided along racial lines, and we should seek to see and judge each other without care or consideration the color of someone's skin.

When people hear of legislation being proposed by the CBC, or the CBC voting as block, I think it has some effect of causing others to think they don't have the interest of all Americans at heart - they are more concerned with the interests of black Americans. This inevitably sparks concern and even some backlash from other voters, and may even prevent some voters (and even members of Congress) from supporting legislation due to its racial design.

In my humble opinion, while this organization was extremely influential and important for minorities, I have to think that if we're ever to achieve a post-racial world such organizations will have to become a thing of the past.

I'm so sorry for the conservative voices on this post that have such a bad feeling regards the Obama administration, now you have a small clue on how many of us felt after 8 years of the Bush fiasco! Enjoy the ride for a change! Oh and by the way, the mess this country is in is due to the Bush years and the attempt by his gang of theives to strip this country of any wealth in the hands of the middle and lower classes.

How can they be upset because there aren't enough black folks in the Treasury Dept? Who works there besides Geithner and his Chief of staff. If you go to the Treasury Department's website Geithner is the only one listed under treasury officials. No under secretaries. Besides the AG is Black. So is the head of the EPA, as well as the director for Domestic policy, and U.S. trade representative, and a senior advisor. The bulk of the school funding in the Stim goes to Tier-1 schools that will provide extreme assistance to schools in black neighborhoods.

Leave it to a Socialist, Racist Black woman in a RACIALLY divided Caucus to decry foul, there aren't enough Blacks.

Sit down and shut up already! I WANT TO SEE AN ALL WHITE CONGRESSIONAL CAUCUS! Ya see, the blacks have been spewing forth their hatred of the White Man for keeping them oppressed for years. Demanding Equality. etc. Now? ALL BLACK college funds, colleges, tv stations, shows, caucuses, funding for homes they never could pay for, lower test scores on the SAME entry exams for certain schools???? WHAT Can you call yourselves stupid any louder?

Now this loud mouth Moron from the CBC is at it again. We will never, eveeeeerrrrrr be equal until we have the same ALL WHITE allowances that the Blacks have. Until then? That is segregation, sponsored by the U.S. GVT.

I'm so sorry for the conservative voices on this post that have such a bad feeling regards the Obama administration, now you have a small clue on how many of us felt after 8 years of the Bush fiasco! Enjoy the ride for a change! Oh and by the way, the mess this country is in is due to the Bush years and the attempt by his gang of theives to strip this country of any wealth in the hands of the middle and lower classes.

That's a typical liberal response that keeps playing over and over in these comment sections. Try coming up with a better argument. And oh, you forgot to mention Rush and Hannity too. If you're going to do this, do it right please.

I am really sick of the race card; this administration has really set race relations back by throwing it in our face constantly. In our home, race has never been an issue; that's how we raised our kids - we just never made a big deal out of anybody's ancestry - they knew they could always bring any of their friends home. As a result, they are now young adults with a variety of friends from all different backgrounds, as it should be.

As is the case for ALL of us, Obama would do well to keep considerable distance between himself and the Congressional Black Caucus, the racist & traitorous cabal within the very walls of the U.S. Capitol.

The CBC message can be summarized as "don't forget your brothas and sistahs and your duty to give them some serious payback, like by manipulating the census to use mathematical models to beef up their numbers rather than simply counting their nappy (or chemically straightened or cornrowed) heads."